It's the perfect slow burn. Even their friendship is a slow burn, and getting to that point in their romance where they admit their true feelings, not only to each other but to themselves, is so worth it. The ambassador of Oissos is behaving with no sense of decorum whatsoever,” Zeliha went on. “She keeps following me around and declaiming as if she’s in the middle of her Senate. I don’t know who thought a Senate was a good idea. All it seems to do is turn out a load of annoying power-hungry bureaucrats.”

It's been announced with a list of AO3-style content tags and they sound exactly like EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED: A Taste of Gold and Iron is an imersive fantasy romance that completly captured me. From the impressive world-building to the diverse and complex cast of characters.The world building was lot more intense than I expected. The story was set in a world, reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire. Of course, it was grand. The author creates a vast new world. A world that has magic and is very matriarchal. I loved the world building. It was picturesque and vivid. Every bit of it was original and well crafted. Alexandra Rowland did an amazing job indeed.

There is action and danger to provide thrills, and a hilariously witty secondary character. But it is the aching and longing that makes Rowland’s stunning queer romance so memorab le."--The Philadelphia Inquirer Queer fantasies will forever hold a special place in my heart. I grew up reading all the big YA fantasies and was disappointed every single time I didn’t see myself represented in the stories. Now that I am an adult, I prefer to read about people my own age, and it fills me with so much joy to see novels like A Taste of Gold and Iron being published. This book has everything that I love about stories. Sometimes a book can feel like it was written for you, and I felt that every single time I sat down to return to this astonishing world. A Taste of Gold and Iron is a slow-burn romance flush with sexy, complicated relationships and founded on the ethics of duty and love. As indulgent and satisfying as your favorite fanfiction.”—Tessa Gratton, author of The Queens of Innis Lear when an altercation puts kadou, the shy price of arasht, on shaky footing with the queen, he tries to prove his loyalty by investigating a break-in at a guild with his newly appointed bodyguard—cold & stoic evemer. as they uncover a conspiracy that threatens to ruin the kingdom’s financial standing, kadou & evemer have to protect each other at every turn.so many of y’all told me that i would love this. that it would be right up the alley of my pulley/marske loving ass. as i sit here with my brain oozing out of my ears, all i have to say is: you were all right. But the ending — all I can say, to avoid spoilers, is that I found it a very strange point at which to stop telling the story. Especially since a decision had just been made that didn't make sense to me. I needed either more info about why it was the right choice, or more story to follow it — or, ideally, both. It was just... weird. It helped convince me this was a 4-star read, rather than 4.5 or 5. Alexandra Rowland is the author of eight fantasy books, including A Taste of Gold and Iron, A Conspiracy Of Truths, and Some by Virtue Fall, as well as a four-time Hugo... Read more I arranged it, didn’t I?” she replied dryly, shifting Eyne a bit so she could free a hand to wave Kadou over. “Come here, I said. The rest of you are dismissed, thank you.” Okay, I am going to be serious now. The ending was good. But it seemed rushed to me. The author wrote a big book, teased us with such a foreplay like environmental, blessed us with an epic romance. Compared to all of these, the ending was rather underwhelming. They didn't even go all the way...physically I mean (cough cough). So, yeah, this lovely couple deserved a better ending. Hell! I deserved to a cuter ending. I thought we would get to see lots of romantic scenes once the political situation was put to rest. But we got nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm disappointed. I really hope that the author will write a sequel.

In the forest below, there was a particular clearing, the usual staging area for the beginning of royal hunts. Servants had come ahead hours before—or perhaps even the day before—to assemble airy, colorful tents and pavilions, floored with carpets and cushions. The grandest of these was the sultan’s, of course, and Kadou was surprised to see Zeliha already waiting when he arrived with the few other courtiers who had not returned to the countryside after the week’s festivities wound down. He’d confided his fears to Tadek—another of the kahyalar, who he had known for some time, and who he had once been … close to. Tadek, who was so easy to talk to, even about matters Kadou barely dared to whisper aloud to anyone else. This also ruined action scenes - what should have been a tense fight scene got dragged into some distant-feeling academic process of fighting forms.While the world-building was wonderful, I must admire the author’s efforts for a different reason. This novel is very clearly focused on the romance, and the plot and world-building run as an undercurrent to Evemer and Kadou’s relationship. The time that went into crafting the elements of the world so that they could compliment and elevate the romance is immediately evident. The most obvious instance of this is the dynamic that is built between the khayalar – who are ferocious trained ‘guards’ – and the people they serve. The trust and understanding that must be placed between the two are so important. Evemer is assigned to Kadou, and before meeting him, has an intense hatred for the prince, due to an incident that occurs in the opening of the novel. This completely flipped the dynamic between the two, as Evemer, who had trained his whole life for this moment, resents the man he must protect with his life. The khayalar are so complex, and I loved how much detail went into building the political elements of the world, because it made all the tropes the author included work. The hate to love trope was tangible, Evemer had a real reason to hate Kadou. The progression of their relationship was masterful. I loved how, slowly, they were forced to rely only on each other, which naturally made for some interesting scenes. Hatred changed to respect, which grew into fondness, in turn blossoming into love. This all happened slowly, and at the right moments. For this relationship to change, the characters needed to develop. A beautifully detailed world, the power to touch-taste metal, political schemes, and a slow-burn romance wrap together in a lush fantasy. Rowland's latest continues to showcase their captivating prose, immersive details, and complicated characters."— Library Journal (starred review) Of course, peace and relief were a luxury that not even princes could easily afford for more than a moment or two: Princess Eyne’s birth was followed by days of celebration—for the court, for the people of the capital and the rest of the kingdom, for the hundreds of kahyalar who served throughout the palace and the government with loyalty and devotion. With his sister the sultan indisposed (and gleefully taking advantage of her own opportunity for some peace), the duties of representing House Mahisti to the populace naturally fell to Kadou, as did a greater than usual proportion of the daily concerns of the realm—a very alarming break-in at the Shipbuilder’s Guild on the night of the birth itself; a wealthy merchant from Oissos caught committing one of the most blasphemous crimes Kadou could conceive of, several days later; a number of perplexing tantrums thrown by Siranos, the body-father of the new princess (which Kadou’s already shaky nerves found as upsetting and alarming on a personal level as the former two catastrophes were on a larger scale) … All these added up to a solid whirlwind week during which time Kadou barely had a chance to breathe, let alone hold his new niece for more than a minute or two the morning after she was born. A sweeping fantasy romance inspired by the Ottoman Empire, A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland is perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light and The Goblin Emperor.